Frequent Miler on the Air - What to do when you don't have enough hotel miles, and more | Ask Us Anything Ep76 | 6-4-25

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

What do you do when you don't have enough hotel miles? And why aren't we letting all 100K Vacay competitors use Chase points? We answered these and many other questions on the Ask Us Anything hosted live on YouTube which first aired on June 4th, 2025.(07:36) - ​​What is your favorite all inclusive you've stayed at? I've been to Punta Cana but want to try other locations. (10:14) - Do you keep the points when you PC Wells Fargo cards? For example if you PC to the no longer available Visa signature card can you then use the points for 50% more for airfare? (11:07) - Does purchasing gift cards count towards welcome offer spend? (15:02) - How can you tell what resort fees IHG will charge when booking award stays? (16:59) - Hello, thoughts on changes to amex biz plat dell credit? #1 Using buying groups for $1k credit? #2 Thoughts for the future, meaning more discounts instead of 1:1. (21:26) - ​​Does anyone know what to expect with United/JetBlue partnership? I’m moving from Houston to Boston this fall and ready to divorce Southwest. (25:48) - What do you guys do when you have an overwhelming amount of airlines miles, and not enough hotel miles? Read more about Capital One Shopping changes here: https://frequentmiler.com/capital-one-shopping-gift-card-redemption-options/(39:12) - what do you think about the lounge changes that are coming to Capital One? (41:56) - I plan to start funding a 529 for my wife’s law school payments. I will be mixing in purchases of the $500 GoC cards. I am worried about clawbacks. Do you know of any data points for clawbacks? (43:06) - Why not let someone use Chase points on the upcoming Challenge since it was the 100K from getting the Sapphire Preferred?Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “swappin’ back n’ forth” by up @ night

This is a Voyascape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyascape.com. Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the frequent Mylar team answers your questions live. Welcome everyone to our, let's see, June 4th. Ask us anything. We're not very good with dates. Speaking for myself anyway. Well, I'm coming to you from the future.

So it's actually June 5th now. You have an excuse. It's June 5th for Nick too, I believe. I think I actually have mostly figured out. Where in the world are you, Nick? I'm on a cruise ship somewhere in the Mediterranean so I'm somewhere around Greece. I'm not even sure to tell you the truth. I couldn't even tell you what today's port stop is to be honest. I was in Corfu yesterday and today I am somewhere and I know the light's flashing

because I'm trying to fix my little handheld light. I don't even have the... it's four o'clock in the morning here. I got out of bed at 345 to be able to be here and just got something. I didn't have a real, why? Yeah, we weren't even expecting you. Why? Who misses and ask us anything? Props.

That's commitment, man. 4 a.m. from the middle of international waters and here you are. Here I am, here I am. Literally not even sure where you are. And literally in figuratively. It's good to see you, Nick. It's almost like I haven't seen you for days now.

Or I don't know. So Nick and I ran into each other at the Grand Hotel Victoria in Lake Como. It was unplanned. I mean, we knew about it in advance, but not when we each individually booked the hotel. We booked it without any plans to be there at the same time, but yet we were.

So that was a lot of fun to overlap like that and to get to see your family again. It's been a while. Yeah, it has been. Yeah, it was great to see you as well and certainly a fantastic place to do it. You were on the same floor too, weren't you? Not only that. Not only on the same floor, I came out to my balcony and the corner is kind of weird

where you can look from my balcony to the right and see the window of another room just to the right, like feet away. And their balcony is on the far end. And I looked over and I could see into the room and I saw some kids playing. And I was like, that looks like Nick's kids. It's so funny. And then Nick came out onto the balcony on the far balcony.

That's hilarious. Yeah, we were practically roommates in a way and our room numbers were one off from each other. One off? Yeah. That's so funny. Who would have known? Who would have thunk that?

Right. But what happened? That's awesome. So the person who called Nick's or who sent Hotel staff up to quiet Nick down was actually you someone's got to do it. Hey, listen if you can quiet my kids down any All the more power to you So great. I do have a question. This is your this is your I believe this is you just celebrated an anniversary trip and Part of the way you celebrated was to have a photo shoot with Nick, but how else did you tell us?

What were some highlights from your, from your whirlwind around Europe celebrating? Well, I mean, we mostly, we did most of our trip in Lake Como. So we started off, we went to France to a friend's wedding in rural France near Strasbourg. And then we took a train or several trains to get to the Lake Como area and checked in at Grand Hotel Victoria. It was the most impressive check-in experience I've seen, with one exception. There was this hotel in Baden-Baden, Germany that had a similarly impressive check-in experience way back when. But just everybody was coming out to greet me, calling us by name and handing us Prosecco.

They gave us a tour of the hotel, including the unbelievable spa that the Grand Hotel Victoria has. And meanwhile, someone had whisked our bags off to our room so that by the time they showed us to our room, the bags are already there. And it was really, really impressive. But anyway, so for the rest of the week, we toured around Lake Como.

Like we did stuff each day. We went to Bellagio and we went to Verena and Tremezo and, you know, except for that one, we took ferries when we could. Probably the highlight of our time there was actually a picnic that I had pre-booked where they drove us up a mountain and set up a great picnic of like local meats and cheeses and fruits and things. And there was another couple that booked the picnic as well. We got along great with them. And so it was just a ton of fun. And the views, you know, if you think Lake Como is beautiful when you're walking around in the little villages around it, check it out from way up above. It was, it was fantastic.

So that was probably the highlight. Yeah. And then we ended by spending a night in the park Hyatt Milan, which is awesome too. And, you know, did some things there. Like we did a food tour, which wasn't great. And we did a tour of the Duomo, which of course was pretty good. You know, Duomo is pretty darn impressive. If you've been there, you'll know. And yeah, and then we capped it all off with Emirates first-class flight back to the States. And so that was a pretty darn sweet way to, to end the trip. Man.

Was that your first, was that, was that either of your first time on, first time on Emirates first? It was Pam's first time on Emirates first. It was my second, but the first time was when, um, Nick and I did the, the Guk trip, the global upgrade thing. And we flew from Dubai to Mali, I think it was. And that was only like three and a half hour flight, I think.

So it wasn't the full experience. It was still really nice, but with the nine plus hour flight from Italy, we got, you know, really the full experience, which was really, really nice. The full catering though. And the type of plane has on onboard shower and everything. So that was all really special. Yeah. That's awesome. And nine hours is long enough to actually shower. Yeah. I mean, you could argue that 15 minutes might be long enough. Like the person who sets the hot water for you. The showers still have the,

Greg was here graffiti that you put in there last time. No, I didn't have a shower last time. Oh, because it was a day. It was a wrong plane. Yeah. Yeah. Wrong plane. Yeah. All right. Well, folks can check out our Instagram if they

want to see more videos about that. But I'm going to shuffle us along to some of our viewer questions. So first question, we're going to start with Tim. What is your favorite all-inclusive you've stayed at? I've been to Punta Cana but want to try other locations. Do you have a favorite? Well, in the spirit of the question, well, my favorite that I've been to so far is probably the Ventana Big Sur in California, which is a Hyatt property. It's a great property. There's all sorts of asterisks about it, but it's a great property in a really cool area. That's kind of my jam in terms of just what the local flora and fauna is and the type of property it is.

It's pretty cool. In terms of the... I haven't actually been to... I'm guessing the spirit of the question was more of the Mexican Caribbean beach all-inclusives, that I actually haven't been to a ton of those. So the one that, of the ones that I've been to, which I've literally probably been to maybe four or five in my life, I have really fond memories of the Hai'at Zalara in Cancun. I remember the food being really good. I remember the beach at that point that was before Cancun started or at least we weren't there when there was a seaweed infestation and it was pretty cool. And so the beaches were great and the rooms were beautiful. And

both the food and the all-included beverage options were really quite nice. And surprising for me, because at that point the only all inclusive I had been to is like the, you know, 60 bucks for watered down tequila and reheated, refried beans sort of places. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but so I would say probably that, but in terms of non-beach,

it would be a lead the Ventana Big Sur for sure. Cool. Anyone else have any notables to add before we move on? I mean, we enjoyed Hilton Rosehill when we went there, like, I guess, eight years ago or something like that. That one you can't book with three night certificates, though, so you'd have to book with points there or do a cash rate.

We had done a cash rate. There was some kind of Thanksgiving Day deal where we managed to get a rate. It was less than 200 bucks a night for two people or something like that. So it was a fantastic deal, which is why we ended up doing that. We just really enjoyed it there. But I imagine that like the hyats that they have in Montego Bay would probably be significantly better than that. But yeah, we certainly enjoyed it. Nice. And the hill in Los solid is Jamaica, right?

Uh, yes. Yeah. All right. Cool. Steven, uh, do you keep the points when you product change Wells Fargo cards? For example, if you product change to the no longer available visa signature card, can you then use the points for 50% more for airfare? I'm afraid I'm not at all familiar with Wells Fargo product changes.

I don't know if any of the other guys are, but my wife and I randomly got shut down from Wells Fargo a couple of years ago for like not even any shenanigans. And so yeah, I have no idea. I'm afraid anyone else know about that? Anyone Wells Fargo-ians? I do not know. We'll have to forgo the Fargo. All right. Well done. Was that a pun from carrying my mullet on? What is this world coming to?

Getting me into puns. That's infectious. What's happening? Once you got your second fur baby, it's all dad jokes from you. It's all dad jokes. That's right. Tim. All right. Does purchasing gift cards count towards welcome offer spend? Can you say a little bit about that? Did you say me? Yes. Tim.

Normally, yes. And I would, I want to differentiate because they're kind of used interchangeably sometimes from folks that, especially folks that are kind of new to the hobby, is that there's two types of gift cards. There's third party gift cards that are like, you know, you buy a gift card for Best Buy or for, you know, Cheesecake Factory or something like that. And then there's Visa and MasterCard gift cards where you buy them and they have a preloaded amount of cash that you then can use for various things. The only bank that I'm aware of that ever had an issue with any that I've heard of

being there being any sort of significant issues with gift cards is Amex. And that was almost exclusively Visa and MasterCard gift cards and almost exclusively buying from places that obviously sell gift cards. So for instance with Simon Mall which is no longer selling gift cards, I know for a lot for a while or for a long time now they haven't been giving any points or counting Simon Mall spend when you're buying Simon Mall gift cards or when you're buying gift cards from Simon Mall. I believe that there's some other stuff like maybe Gift Card Mall or something. Stephen would probably actually remember that. Yeah, it's the ones run by Incom. So it's the

gift card shop, amexgiftcard.com, mustcardgiftcard.com and vanillagift.com. None of those in theory own points with Amex, although there was a data point recently where someone did earn on their Hilton card with them, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule for those particular sites. But yeah, I've met quite a few MX signup bonuses when buying gift cards, although that was more third party gift cards rather than Visa and MasterCard gift cards. So, yeah, I would just be particularly careful about not doing things in $505.95 increments or $506.95 or however much the purchase fees are at your local grocery store, if that's how you're going to be doing it. But yeah, for the most part, it seems to be pretty safe.

All right. And the reason you say that is because most of the grocery stores will have the largest denomination is a $500 card and then they'll be in purchase be added on and so it can look that amount can look suspicious. I think the thing also is like the your spend pattern and that's what Stephen's speaking to there right like you know when people ask this question I'm always a little divided because I think some of the fear is way overblown because if you're spending $500 to $1,000 on groceries, I think very few issuers would ever bet an eye at that, unless it's in that exact increment, like Stephen said.

But on the flip side, if you get a card with a $10,000 spending requirement and you spend 10 grand the first day at the grocery store, that might raise an eyebrow possibly, I guess. So, you know, but I think a few hundred or $1,000 here or there is probably pretty unlikely to catch any sort of heat unless it's from one of those few sites that Stephen mentioned with Amex specifically.

Beyond that, I think people are concerned there. But the flip side of that is I don't want to look over my shoulder either. You know, like I don't want to buy something that if I can't meet the spending requirement otherwise, then okay. But if I have other options to meet the spending requirement, then I'll pursue some of those other options so that I'm not like, oh, are they going to claw back those points? You know, I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for that if I can avoid it. Yeah. I think that's, that seems like a good start to that thought anyway. So I think that we'll kick off to Nick.

Let's see. Actually no, Stephen. How can you tell what resort fees IHG will charge when booking award stays? So in theory IHG doesn't actually waive resort fees on award stays but they do sometimes and so really I would go into it assuming that they will charge you fees but just kind of count yourself lucky if they don't because we had a stay, it was State Bridge Suites in Orlando, I think it was like Royal Park or something like that. It was meant to have some kind of resort fee, I forget exactly how much, like 20 or 30 bucks a

night or something, so we assumed that we would end up paying that but then when we checked out that wasn't charged at all even though it was specifically listed when we were making the reservation it listed on their website that that's something that you pay but we didn't whereas there have been like one or two other IHG properties we've stayed at before and they have charged a resort fee so yeah just assume that they will charge and then get yourself lucky if they don't. I feel like Kimpton Seafire, is that one that does charge a resort fee? Because I think you mentioned that as being one before where you have to pay that

if you're booking with points or fee night certificate. Yeah, although one thing to notice is like, the Seafire has two resort fees, if they still do it the way they used to, one is like 10% of your room charge and the other is 75 bucks a day or whatever it is. The 10% one doesn't cost anything because if you're booking with points, it's 10% of nothing.

So you're just paying the fixed part of it, not the percentage. And is there a way to find out what that is ahead of time? Well, yeah, it shows you on the screen when screen when you're when you're looking at so that Okay, cool. All right, Nick thoughts on Changes to MX biz plot Dell credit number one using buying groups for

$1,000 of credit or number two thoughts for the future meaning more discounts instead of one-to-one. I don't understand any of that so if you could explain as you answer. All right so the business platinum card has had a credit for doll purchases for years and it's actually been twice a year now for the last couple of years. Well it's always been twice a year. It's $200 twice a year so $200 last couple of years. Well, it's always been twice a year, but it's $200 twice a year. So $200 between January and June, and it was $200 between July and December, though that's ending with this current set of credits.

So this last credit, I guess, is good through June 30th. And then after that, they're switching to a different model. Instead of that $200 back when you spend $200 or more, it's going to be you get $1,000 back after you spend $5,000. Am I right on that, everybody? Yeah, okay. So my thought on that was that it was kind of a bummer. It stinks. I didn't like that as much because I preferred just getting $200 of free stuff. I put that in quotation marks because you're paying the annual fees. It's not really free You're just kind of getting your $200 back

And even then it doesn't even really feel like getting my full $200 back because I'm buying overpriced stuff from Dell that I don't really Want or need anymore? so the change At first they didn't like it at all because I Don't really want $200 worth of stuff from Dell anymore, so I don't really want $5,000 worth of stuff from Dell. But it's true that there are buying groups where you can get some of that back and end up profiting some on that.

And if you're involved in that and you're comfortable with that and you're good with whatever time and effort that takes then yeah it may certainly help the card pay for itself. You know my thought on that is great if it works for you. I had kind of gotten out of reselling electronics for the most part because I always had issues with that not with buying groups doing it on my own I'm talking about. With buying groups it seems like there would be much less risk in the one hand because you're shipping it off to the buying group. But I haven't dealt with buying groups with my Dell credits up to this point. So I don't have a ton of firsthand experience there.

So if somebody else on the team wants to hop in on this, by all means hop in on whatever you think about buying groups for the Dell credits. Yeah, I mean, I do a fair amount of Dell binary selling which Nick already knew which is why he was he was throwing this off I was throwing this off love and I was waiting for you to swing and he didn't look like you're gonna take a swing at That yeah, because you know, it's important to have a poker face with these things the So yeah, I and I and I do a fair amount I think the but I don't know that there's really anything

to add to what Nick says outside of the fact that, and I know that for some people Dell is super tricky in terms of they have, they can't get orders through, they can't get stuff shipped. I have both my wife and my accounts are, it's very easy, but I always ship to my home and I have buying groups where even though I pay tax on that shipment, the buying groups, normally there's enough orders, there's quite a few orders throughout the year that if you combine like shopping portal returns like Rakuten or Capital

One Shopping that will go up to 15, 20x on DELT sometimes, combined with the profit that you make from the actual sale, combined with the points that you're getting on whatever card that you're using to pay for that, it can be a pretty nice haul. And so the idea, it would be pretty easy for me to do $5,000 in a year on a card or two, maybe more. are you gonna do that 20% back? It would be pretty sweet. Oh Yeah, yeah, I mean unless they'll shut me down, you know, and that could always be a thing, you know I mean I I will try I'm leaning in the same direction. I haven't yet but because the this new credit isn't there yet But with the new credit coming, I mean, yeah could end up helping the card pay for itself

So I'm certainly leaning in that direction. No. Well, then you throw into like AmEx. I mean, there's so many AmEx offers from Dell that you throw those into. And I mean, it can be a nice buying group opportunity. All right. Bullish on Dell. OK, Greg, does anyone know what to expect with United JetBlue partnership? I'm moving from Houston to Boston this fall and ready to divorce Southwest Relatable. All we know is what's been publicized, which is that we should be able to do things like

redeem JetBlue points to fly United and redeem United points to fly JetBlue. There should be some, there's some elite repress, you could say that word for me. Reciprocity, repress, I don't know why I can't say that word. Anyway, but it's pretty limited like with being a little like pick seats and so avoid a few fees here and there but it didn't seem like it was too exciting what you get out of that. But you know if you're, I think if you're into either one of those programs United or JetBlue, then it's nice to have that extra, the extra flights available to you within that sort of like overall network of things.

So since you're going to Boston, you'll have a lot of JetBlue flights out of there and that should be a good choice for you, I would think. Yeah. Cool. And if you Google like JetBlue United Blue Sky on each of their websites, they have pages set up to explain what you can expect benefit-wise in terms of reciprocal benefits and things like

that. So on the JetBlue website, it shows if you have mosaic status, what you can expect to get on United flights and vice versa. If you have premier status with United, then what you can expect to get on JetBlue flight. So there are tables on both of those if you already, I'm assuming you don't have status already if you've been like primarily focusing on Southwest, but yeah, that's there. Like to check it out. We don't know yet about the mileage earning and burning and things like that, but status

wise we do. Yeah. And also one of the things the, you should look into whether the JetBlue business card or JetBlue Premier card makes sense for you. They're both pretty good deals at $99 annual fee. They automatically give you 5,000 points every year. So that helps offset that fee. And they also give you 10% back when you redeem points, like you instantly get those 10% points back, I believe. So yeah, that could be a good addition

to your lineup there. Sounds like we're all in favor of divorcing Southwest. I have a quick follow-up for Greg really quickly. United isn't known for being terribly generous with their partner award space, or with their award space with partners rather, I should say. What does your gut tell you?

What does your Greg the Frequent Mylar gut tell you about both if redeeming JetBlue points for United will be a good value and whether or not United will actually make any sort of significant space available for JetBlue points for United will be a good value, and whether or not United will actually make any sort of, you know, significant space available for JetBlue. Yeah. To the second one, my guess is no, that they'll, I think they'll provide the same amount

of award space that they do to all their partners, which is to say not very much. I hope I'm wrong. You know, like, it seems to be the Alaskan-American partnership is a good example where, you know, American seems to release more awards based to Alaska than, than they do to other partners, as far as I can tell, which, which is really nice. So, you know, the will United do the

same, I doubt it. As to whether it would be a good deal, I don't think it's likely to be a particularly good, like great deal, but what's really nice is being able to book a single, when you're booking an award with one or the other, being able to book a single award that includes both airlines so you can get all the way from your origin to your destination

in one ticket I think is really nice and can help with, you know, checking bags and just if things go wrong having someone care about it besides you. Yeah. Great. Perfect. We're going to move on to another all play. What do you guys do? And we'll start with Tim. What do you guys do when you have an overwhelming amount of airline miles but not enough hotel points? You know, we should do a challenge about this sometime. Sounds good. That would be a really good idea. This is actually, this is something that I think is

a really big issue for a lot of, and I shouldn't say that, I think it's a different issue for different people. So for, when I go on vacation on points and miles, let's say if I'm going to take a seven night vacation and only use 100,000 points, for instance, which is our new annual challenge coming up. But no, I mean, so my wife and I, I only need to buy two tickets for a week, or I guess four total, two there and two on the way back. I need to have seven nights of points for seven awards day, or hotel stays.

Now, Nick, on the other hand, when he has a week vacation, he has to book four flights there, four flights back, and only seven nights of hotel stays. So for Nick, airline miles are very, very, very, very valuable because he has to book a lot of tickets. I don't. And so for me, what I always find myself looking for more of is hotel points.

And the bummer about the way points and miles interact with hotels is that not a lot of the transferable currencies are great transfer options because the transfer ratios aren't such that you're actually getting good values for your transferable points. That's part of what we're doing on this annual challenge that's coming up is trying to show how there are good values to be having some of these transferable currencies with lodging. But so I think that's a really, really, um, a really big, or that's kind of a quandary that makes chase nice because transferring to Hyatt is actually a really nice value for hotel points.

Whereas if you transfer your points to IHG, whose points are worth about a third of chase, but has the same transfer ratio, it doesn't, it doesn't work out well in terms of using your transferable points. But in terms of what I do, that actually affects my earning a lot. Almost all of my non-bonus spending or non-welcome offer spending is spent on Citi primarily because for a couple of reasons, a couple of which I won't talk about right now, but one of the reasons is there's a lot of really good lodging options to be had with Citi. I'm actually reaching a weird spot with Marriott where it's really hard to earn Marriott points well.

I just spent a ton on this safari that we're taking this summer. I'm down to like 80,000, 100,000 Marriott points or something like that, which isn't a lot for me. I'm looking at this saying, gosh, I don't know transferring. The points aren't valuable to transfer. It's not usually a very good opportunity to transfer to Marriott. And Marriott's card rules make it difficult once you've kind of gone through and earned a bunch of welcome offers, it makes it really difficult to kind of keep earning Marriott points. So I'm kind of at this weird kind of standstill with Marriott where I'm like, gosh, I don't really, I need to develop a strategy for it. But so all that to say, I tend to think much more in my earning now on where I can get good value for lodging

because I find myself needing that more than I'd need airline miles. Now I'd be interested to hear Nick's view specifically because Nick has to book double the amount of airline tickets that I do wherever I go. So Nick might have very different ideas about that. But maybe sometimes double the rooms also, depending on where you're going, right?

It's true. Yeah, because we do travel with family sometimes. But no, I mean, Tim's right. I mean, there's definitely a big difference. Airline miles are much more important to me because we are usually traveling with a lot of people, even if it's just my immediate family. So yeah, my first reaction to this

is if I don't have a lot of hotel points and I'm looking for the best deal I can possibly get on paying cash for a hotel room, because if I just don't have a lot of hotel points, there's not a magic wand I can wave to all of a sudden have a good option there. Instead, I'm looking at, okay, is there card linked offers, is there a shopping portal, what are the current monthly or current quarterly whatever hotel promotions, am I registered

for all of those, and what's the best deal I can stack to get a great price on a hotel. So my perspective on the hotel points has long been that I always liked to travel and in most places I can find a hotel that I can afford. I see most places because like the Maldives is an exception where maybe I could afford it but it's going to be much more than what I would normally pay but if I'm going to go to Paris or Rome or New York or Los Angeles or Orlando there's going to be a hotel in my price range somewhere. So it's a matter of just stacking the best possible deal on that. So that would be like my first instinct in response to this is look for the best

deals you can stack on paying for a hotel. Then beyond that, the other things that come to mind are certainly what Tim said, there are some okay transfer options sometimes. I mean, maybe transferring to a Wyndham or for a Vecasa vacation rental or something would make sense. Although buying hotel points is probably your next best strategy to say, okay, well when are Hilton and IHG points on sale and can I use those sales to get a hotel I want to stay at more affordably?

That would certainly be another strategy going after that or other shopping portal earnings. Now I know Capital One Shopping recently pulled a whole bunch of gift card redemptions, but then I also saw a message and I'm on vacation, so I'm like, I'm way out of the loop here, but I saw a comment come in at some point in the last few hours that a bunch of those are back So I don't know if hotels comm is back, but I've got my fingers crossed that maybe they are Even when everything went away though Expedia like the Expedia hotel card thing Global hotels and the other year.

It's like a global hotel card, but hotel card. There you go. Yeah, that's been a redemption option in the Capital One shopping portal is very frequently have fantastic payouts for me. So I've redeemed several thousand dollars and hotels.com gift cards already. And I've got a bunch more credit.

They're still waiting to be used. So that's kind of my backup bank of hotel points, sort of is my capital and shopping cash back that I've been redeeming hotels.com gift cards for and or would redeem for the global hotel card to cover some stays. So those are at least a couple of my thoughts. Those are the first things to remind me.

I'll just add one other thing, which it's often the case that the best hotels or lodging for where you wanna go is not a points hotel anyway. And so if you think about like optimizing, for what you actually wanna do and where you actually wanna stay, it might be that a cash alternative

is actually better fit for what kind of vacation or trip you're trying to take. Do any of you guys earn, like do you keep a, I know some people keep a kind of a, they use, they earn some cash back and keep that in a slush fund to pay for hotels as a way to kind of address that issue. Do any of you guys do that?

I don't necessarily do that. However, like if I were in a situation where, okay, well I wanna travel more or more comfortably than I would normally be willing to pay for, then I'd be looking to earn, yeah, actually, like, earn some cash back bonuses, whether that's from credit cards or checking account bonuses. There's been years where my wife and I have collectively earned five, six, seven thousand dollars in checking account bonuses. So that would be another way that I would earn either cash for the hotel stays or cash to buy the points.

Yeah, and what Nick was talking about before with the Capital One shopping hotel gift cards, the hotels.com or Expedia hotels gift cards, I was just thinking earlier today, it's kind of funny that this came up, but I was thinking of just cashing out all of my Capital One shopping for one of those cards and then using that as my hotel slash fund basically.

And I think that would be nice to have because then it would feel, it would still feel free because you're using this thing that otherwise doesn't have value outside of booking hotels. So I kind of like that approach. In addition to what everyone else has said, like a few other suggestions, consider the credits that you have. So if you've got like Amex fine hotels and resorts credits,

take a look to see, because even though there might be a hotel that would be more expensive than you would normally pay, if your $200 credit's going to go to waste then paying like one or two hundred dollars out of pocket on top of that $200 might still be a better deal than you'd get through other means. Similar kind of thing with if you have like a Venturex card or with Capital One and you've got a $300 credit each year, that can only be redeemed when going through their travel portal and so if you haven't

got any other need for using that, booking hotels that way with this credit that would otherwise potentially go to waste is another option. Nick had mentioned about buying points so I bought a ton of IHG points before just because we get such good value from those over the last few years. because we get such good value from those over the last few years. With Airbnb, for the last several months, when Amex added the $20 a month credit on the Business Gold card that can be used at office supply stores, I've just been buying $25 Airbnb gift cards on those cards from staples.com because it online the third party gift cards code as staples rather than it being a third party processor or anything

like that. So I've just been stocking up on Airbnb gift cards because I know they eventually will end up wanting to stay in Airbnb and things like that. And so that's just the easiest use of using up that $20 credit. So there's a few additional ways that you can end up getting some value and Capital On Shopping as well, they come out with some ridiculously high rates for hotel programs like Hilton's often like 30-35% choice, I've been getting offers for 20%, IHG 15-20%, Best Western like 20-30% or something like that. Yeah, now that they've like devalued the redemption options, it's not quite so great, but even so it's still hard to be 30 percent on like a Hilton stay or something like that.

So that on top of earning like up to like 30, 40 points per dollar or something like that, oftentimes if you have an Aspire card and you pay with that, you can just get a super rewarding stay that way. So just be sure to check all the terms and conditions because like with the Hilton option, it's only valid on like six to ten of their brands or something like that. And there's a whole bunch of excluded ones. So you won't necessarily earn like 30% on all of them. But yeah, that's just some other ways to save and earn. Nice, that's a lot of really great ideas. Follow-up question, a lot of you guys talked about Capital One shopping, can you just remind me,

is that the Chrome plugin or is that the in account offers that you're talking about? That's the browser plugin where you don't need a Capital One card to use it. Okay, so each of you, when you mentioned Capital One offers, that's what you're talking about. Capital One Shopping. Capital One Shopping. Capital One Shopping. Capital One Shopping because Capital One offers is different, Kerry. Yeah, obviously.

I will say that if anybody is... What about Shopping Offers? If anyone is just getting into it, do take a look at Nick's post about Capital One shopping removing. They've removed a lot of really useful options for most people. Or for a lot of people, I should say. And so just take a look at that. If you're starting from zero, take a look at what you have options for before you start investing in it because their trajectory has not been to add a bunch of really good options. It's been removing really good options.

Really good point. And like right now, I'm sitting literally the only two things that I have left that have any value are Expedia and stuff. And I've got like thousands of dollars of credit with Stapley Capital One. So that's a bummer. That's a bummer. I mean, whatever I can do it, but you know, like I'm already there so that's fine, whatever I can get out.

But in terms of like, if I was gonna start trying to use something, I think it bears looking at what you have on option, what your redemption options for before you start getting really in really big to Capital One shopping. Yeah. And I saw that comment come in a couple hours ago that said that a bunch of the good options are back and I'm looking at mine and I saw that comment come in a couple hours ago that said that a bunch of the good options are back and I'm looking at mine and I'm not seeing

that right now in mine but so it but it may vary because we have seen it vary in terms of which gift card options are available. It seems pretty clear from the yeah comments that have been coming in that it varies from person to person which is interesting. So weird. Hmm. So I kind of, I, this might be related, maybe not. I'm going to skip ahead. We'll bounce back to the question I had lined up for you guys because this relates to Capital One.

And Nick, I think it's your turn. What do you think about the lounge changes that are coming to Capital One? Is that related even remotely or no? It's not. And I think that it happened while I was on vacation. I saw a couple of emails on this, but I have not followed this because I have been on vacation mode. So I'm going to punt this one. All right. Let's give it to Stephen. I might have skipped you anyway, I think. So Stephen, let's go back to you. So yeah, the changes are on Venturex personal cards.

In the past, you could add up to four additional card holders and they would get the ability to go into airport landers, say as priority pass, Capital One landers and Capital One landings, which I'm not particularly familiar with the landing side of things but yeah from February 1st next year those additional card holders aren't going to be able to get lounge access for free instead they would have to pay a $125 fee per year in order to get that access. Similarly you used to be able to bring a couple of guests in with you to those lounges, that's going to be going away. You're going to have to spend $75,000 a year on your card if you want to be able to retain that ability. For Fintrex business cardholders, in the past you weren't

able to get lounge access when adding additional cardholders, and that was only on the personal card but going forward that's still going to be the policy but your additional card holders can pay $125 a year as well in order to get that access and similar to the personal card you're not going to be able to guest people into the lounges unless you spend $75,000 on your card in a year. So yeah, some pretty negative changes for people who have those cards. And so yeah, there's been a lot of feedback on the post about people being super disappointed, which is completely understandable. So especially when it comes to guesting, because if you only have one Venturex card in your household and you travel with your spouse, it now means that they won't be able to come into the lounge with you unless they pay, I think it's

like $35 a time or something like that. So the fact that they're completely cutting off all guesting ability unless you hit that high spend threshold is like a big bummer. Yeah, that stinks. I would not wanna have to sit out access as a player too. All right, Greg, this one is for you. I plan to start funding a 529 for my wife's law school payments. I will be mixing in purchases of the $500 gift to college cards. I'm worried about clawbacks.

Do you know of any data points for clawbacks? Not sure what, does anyone know why they'd be worried about clawbacks for this? I'm not sure. I'm just worried about gift card purchases. Yeah, that's what I'm assuming is if they're like, cause it might be that they're buying from H-E-B or somewhere that has like the $500 ones in store

for bonus spend. But I agree. I think that there's no reason to be concerned. They share Greg's lack of any concern at all about that. Yeah, I wouldn't be worried at all about it at all. So yeah, I mean, clawbacks, I guess that's clawbacks on points earned from your credit card you're talking about.

But even if that happened, you still have the $500 gift card that went to the 529. It's not like you've lost that much, but now I don't think clawbacks are likely from buying gift cards at a grocery store or wherever it is you're buying. All right. So this one, Greg, I'm going to start you off on this one, but maybe we'll all kind of touch on it a little bit. This relates to our challenge, which I wanted to talk about a little bit anyway. So as you answer this, maybe summarize the challenge we just announced as well.

This person wants to know, why not let someone use chase points on the upcoming challenge since it was the 100k form from getting the Sapphire Preferred. So can you explain a bit about what our challenge is and then why this person's asking that and why we're not doing that? Sure. So this year's challenge is going to kick off in the fall and you can check out the blog to see the details of it. But the basics are that each contestant is going to have 100,000 transferable points to build the greatest vacation they can.

And the Sapphire preferred 100k offer was the thing that made us think of this. And we're calling it 100K vacay. So 100,000 point vacation. And the idea is this, that even that Kerry and I are gonna be judges and the other three guys are gonna be the contestants, but I'm also going to set a benchmark trip. I'm gonna use chase points to do a trip before the other three guys

travel where the idea is like, here's what I can do with a hundred thousand chase points. Now let's see if you guys can beat me with your other types of points. So we've got one person with city points, another person with Amex points, and the third with Capital One miles. And, you know, all of them have their strengths and weaknesses, but we wanted to use Chase as the benchmark because the way the challenge is constructed is that you have to spend at least three nights in hotels. And we feel like having the ability to transfer to Hyatt is a huge advantage for that situation

because Hyatt has their award chart, they've got some really nice hotels at the low end of the award chart. So it's possible to stay in a really nice hotel, in some cases for very few points. And if you don't have that, trying to get a whole vacation in for a hundred thousand points, I mean, just like if you tried to stay at a Marriott

that costs 35,000 points for three nights, you've used up all of your points and you can't get to the hotel. So, you know, so that's why like we think that Hyatt all of your points and you can't get to the hotel. So that's why we think that Hyatt is such a big deal. So yeah, so we are using Chase Points, it's just like the, it's for the benchmark trip, not the competitors.

And I think the reason not to let the other competitors use it is because like we want these challenges to be hard. So Greg is explaining how this is like gonna be really difficult for them to beat his benchmark trip. But that's the whole point. That's the that's what makes it a challenge is, you know, use these points that are thought of as way more difficult for lodging, but see if you can actually discover something new and kind of impress us with. Yeah, it was also kind of a sneaky way to get like

all four of the major transferable points currencies into one challenge. It wouldn't be as interesting if we all just like stayed in a category two hight somewhere for three nights and flew there. I think it'd be a boring challenge. I'd be more boring to watch, I think, if that were the case. I think it'd be a boring challenge. It'd be more boring to watch, I think, if that were the case.

I think it'd be more exciting. Like everybody's kind of saying here with us having the different types of things to highlight, because different people have different points, right? Not everybody's got the same kind of points. So I think it's worth showing, you know, hey, this is what you can do if you pick up that new 100k bonus on whichever card is offered by whichever bank. Yeah. I'm hoping we'll see some really creative ideas like, oh my gosh, here's a way to use, I don't know, Turkish miles to book a hotel, or here's a way to book a flight that includes, by having a layover in a particular place, includes free hotels.

Those kind of things could, could, could show some real great creativity and maybe we'll, we'll learn something new from all that. That's, that's a hope. Yeah. Nick and Tim, I'm curious, have you guys booked much of your trip yet? And why do you have in mind what you're planning on doing? Or what's the goal? I have some ideas. I have some bookings.

I figured that's why you weren't going to discuss some of your city. No, no, no, there's some alternative advantages to city stuff. It's not. But yeah, no, I'm not. Yeah, totally. I have some bookings. I don't have any bookings yet. You know what? I figured. It's going to do. It's just, it requires some time and effort that I haven't been able to put into it these last couple of weeks because I've been on vacation here.

So I, but I actually, I was up late last night. Well, everybody was asleep like on my phone trying to calculate some things and whatnot. So I'm working on it. You don't sound very on vacation. You don't look very on vacation. I'm thinking about it. There's no doubt I'm thinking about it. So, but I don't have anything booked yet. How about you, Stephen? I have much of my stuff booked. So I think I have my, I do have my flights booked. I have most of my hotel nights booked.

Wow. You're just going to be twiddling your thumbs for months. Crazy. Yeah. So yeah, like I came up with- He still has 99,000 points left to use. I came up with like this concept for my trip that I'm very excited about. So I feel like it's going to be very interesting.

So like activity wise, I feel like it's going to be a much more interesting challenge for me just because especially because I'm going to have energy on this, which is amazing because the last few challenges I've either been sick or I've been coming off the back of like other trips or like it was coming to like the very last one that was coming and we were at the end of our seven year 50 state road trip and stuff we were like one month from the end and then like jetting off all around the world on all these economy flights I had zero energy to actually go and do any activities like naked on and things like that so, I'm looking forward to this one because I'll be much more well rested. Um, so yeah, this should be a good one. Yeah. I'm super excited too. Cause I like, I'm like, wow, you can actually do a lot with a hundred thousand points. You know, digging into some things.

I'm like, oh wow. There's some really, the world is your oyster. Yeah. It's challenging, but it's also amazing. Like quite what you can achieve with it as well. Like I've been surprised by what I can actually get done with my Capital One miles. So you guys are not scared of that. Now that you have your trip book, your Pepper prowess will be on full display.

So on a scale of one to 10, how confident are you that you're going to beat Nick and I? And then on a scale of one to 10, how confident are you that you're going to beat Nick and I? And then on a scale of one to 10, part B is how confident are you that you're going to make Greg look bad even though he has chase points? It's trick. I feel like tripwise, Greg will like in terms of like flights and accommodation with what he has to play with with chase. I feel like particularly with accommodation, I think he's probably going to do better than me however in

terms of an oval trip and what I'm gonna be incorporating I'm hoping that mine will as an overall vacation will be more impressive and people like enjoy what I've put together. In terms of beating you guys it's so like I'm very happy with what I have planned but I know you guys are both gonna knock it out of the park too and so it is really tough because I was so confident with Million Mile Madness that I was gonna do really well but I was gonna be like super fast and that I was to like come in like well under budget compared to you guys and Greg like finished what, two, three days ahead of me in terms of like time-wise and so yeah, there's just no knowing with these challenges just because like everyone always just pulls something out that's incredible.

So, but yeah, I think that it's gonna, I feel like this is going to be one of the most entertaining ones that we've done just because we'll be able to showcase not only the flights and the accommodation, but also activities because there's going to be a vacation as well. So yeah, I think it's going to be a really good one. All right. Like this video if you're already starting to make guesses about what you think Stephen is going to be doing and like this video if you're already guessing who you think is going to win this challenge. And then we're going to have to say goodbye so YouTube doesn't cut us off.

And we'll see you guys the first Wednesday of July. we're sharing our favorite places, some of our best tips and experiences from all around the world in just 10 minutes on Travel in 10. Join us at foyescape.com.